The Dolphin Letters, 1970¿1979

WINNER OF THE PEGASUS AWARD FOR POETRY CRITICISM

The Dolphin Letters offers an unprecedented portrait of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick during the last seven years of Lowell¿s life (1970 to 1977), a time of personal crisis and creative innovation for both writers. Centred on the letters they exchanged with each other and with other members of their circle ¿ writers, intellectuals, friends and publishers, including Elizabeth Bishop, Caroline Blackwood, Mary McCarthy and Adrienne Rich ¿ this book has the narrative sweep of a novel, telling the story of the dramatic breakup of Lowell and Hardwick''s twenty-one-year marriage and their extraordinary, but late, reconciliation.

Lowell¿s sonnet sequence The Dolphin (for which he controversially adapted Hardwick¿s letters as a source) and his last book, Day by Day, were written during this period, as were Hardwick¿s influential books Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature and Sleepless